ASK AGAIN | Song, Kexi
"The power of contemporary art
is to convey and record the voice of reflection,
图像是个重要的因素。”
“In SONG Kexi’s “Dolls” series, the dolls are personified with life. This pure self and anthropomorphic art context reflects the correspondence of mind between the artist and art. SONG has been working on “Dolls” series for six or seven years. By the bodies of the dolls, he expresses mind movements and visual outlet. His works are humorous and vivid with a strong visual appeal. To look into his works, I can at least feel from a side aspect that SONG’s art has grown out its own discourse, value, idea theme, expression and cultural mood in a new range of time, which made him a notable artist.”
WU Chenrong - "Fearless Pioneer"
Taking “Figurative on Edge” as the exhibition title can be understood as a state of figurative painting today. On one hand, it shares space with other art genres, which leads to its marginalization, on the other hand, confronting a new reality of art; figurative painting is still struggling to breakthrough the edge, showing its face in practice. SONG’s work can make us feel this tendency.
In the contemporary art scene with various trends where new media arts are emerging, historical graphic arts are still fresh and appealing for many art lovers. However, over time, age and social changes, the form and content of painting itself is going through great changes. Although under the impact of new art forms such as photography, video art and computer art, paintings no longer have the overall power to reflect our time and life, confronting a new art prospect, the successors are able to open up a new field of vision for painting, which is not only reflected in the expansion of the artist, but also in the exploration of the width and depth of human spirit. To look at SONG Kexi’s painting language, it’s difficult for us to say that figurative painting has gone to the edge. In the semantic of enhancing ideas, we can no longer see figurative paintings with traditional style. SONG’s language is no longer on the side of the mass, but more of an expression of personal opinion. Far from his photographic paintings shortly after his graduation, we now see a higher level of figurative art. This is a way to show the meaning of existence for his generation of artists.
JIANG Mei - "Figurative on Edge—a contemporary Oil Painting Exhibition"
SONG Kexi’s “Child Play”, “Exaggerated Dolls”, “City Dolls” series depicts a group of dolls with specific faces playing games, they hide their true faces when they are playing, dispelling their own existences in their costumes. Hereby, SONG has touched the issue of owning and grasping oneself under the wave of pop and fashion. The group of youth has truthfully stated: “I am myself, my life, my art.”
MA Qinzhong: Chinese Contemporary art tendencies series "Cartoon Generation and consumer culture"
SONG Kexi is the only one of the four participating artists who doesn’t give up figurative expression in the works. The conceptual transformation of his images is striking; he also uses “Dolls” and “Child Play” to criticize the restriction of realism. But the conversion of expression means does not make the artist completely let go of his attachment to figurative mode. Under the artist’s brushes, the significance of space in traditional figurative is broken, with more significantly virtual, illusory, subjective taste and personal thoughts; the artist firmly believes that “the strategy of art is buried deeply in every object of our lives”. The artist doesn’t care about the uproar of debates on artistic value and social significance,” prefers to keep a daily and casual way of understanding and explore his own artistic language with a calm attitude”
BAN Shanyang: What’s attitude – Review of “Attitude” Four Artists Exhibition
Song Kexi is a Chinese painter, from northern China, who, after studying in Peking settled in Shanghai, where he has carved out an important place for himself in contemporary Chinese art circles. He attaches major importance to his painting’s visual impact that remains for him the "sine qua non" condition of creativity. As he is not very inclined to bowing to dominant tendencies nor to mercantile aspects, the Shanghaian artist paints according to his inspiration, according to his own rhythm and with his own specific means. Here we have no trickery, no wish to appear. Since the year 2000, his expression has changed significantly. The artist has re-introduced new vocabularies into his canvases, greatly increased in subtlety, in originality, and the descriptive and symbolic elements frequently resurface in the surreal ambiguity that has increased during the past few years. These new visual and technical solutions brought forth unique compositions, with rhythmical themes, of a modernity in which the artist finds again and re-affirms both his expressive style and his creative autonomy. The composition "Gilding Dolls", in the current show, is an example of this. The work is full of children parachutists, who remind him of the real parachutists whose imagery was ever present in his childhood. The artist has replaced the genuine character, side-stepped via the children, and he emphasizes simplicity, innocence, hope and beauty all the while expressing the hope that parachutism might become an Olympic discipline in future times. And so he dreams that the Olympic dream and Icarus’ myth might further reconcile the Olympic Games of the new Millenium with its mythical origins.
Ante Glibota: Painting's flight "Art in the Olympic hour"